What to read in Indian Express

9 May 2024, The Indian EXPRESS

An 11-member team, 10 hours, exploding pine cone: Dousing a forest fire in Uttarakhand

Page no- 1

GS3- Disaster and Disaster Management

• “This is why it’s called ‘jungle ki aag ki tarah failna (spreading like wildfire)’…. Look how fast it’s spreading,” says Forester Shiv Singh Rawat, dashing towards a plume of fire that’s now racing down the slope like molten lava, inching dangerously close to a pile of pine needles.
• Armed with only a branch to beat out the flames, Rawat, his sweat-soaked khaki uniform clinging to his body, climbs up the slope that’s strewn with pine needles.
• As he leads the charge, another forest guard follows closely behind, using a gardening rake to widen the gap between the fire and the surrounding vegetation.

 

Disclosed all side-effects in package, stopped making Covidshield in 2021: SII

Page no- 8

GS2- Issues Relating to Development and Management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health

• With British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca asking for the withdrawal of marketing approval of its Covid-19 vaccine in Europe, Serum Institute of India (SII), which partnered with the company to provide Covishield vaccines in India, said Wednesday it had stopped production in December 2021.
• The European Medicines Agency, the medicine regulator for the European Union, had on Tuesday said that the marketing authorisation of the vaccine Vaxzevria, known as Covishield in India, has been withdrawn at the request of the company.

 

Do marriages need to be registered? What happens if they aren’t?

Page no- 14

GS2- Indian Constitution—Historical Underpinnings, Evolution, Features, Amendments, Significant Provisions and Basic Structure

• The Supreme Court last week ruled that despite an official marriage certificate, a Hindu couple before the Court had “never acquired the status of husband and wife.”
• The reason: the couple’s marriage was registered under the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 (HMA) even before they performed the wedding rituals.
• The SC ruled that the couple who had filed divorce cases need not get a divorce because they were never married in the first place.
• The apex court’s observations in the ruling bring to focus various issues on registration and solemnization of a marriage, and its necessity.

 

Why Vietnam wants US to change its ‘non-market economy’ status

Page no- 14

GS2- Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and Agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests

• Vietnam has been pushing the President Joe Biden administration to quickly change its “non-market economy” classification to “market economy”, in a bid to avoid high taxes imposed by the US on the goods imported from the Southeastern country.
• Although Vietnam has emerged as one of the top trading partners of the US and helped thwart China’s expanding influence in the region, it has continued to be on Washington’s list of non-market economies for more than two decades.
• In total, the list includes 12 non-market economies such as Russia, China, and some countries which used to be a part of the erstwhile Soviet Union.

 

The India-Nepal border issue

Page no- 14

GS2- India and its Neighborhood- Relations

• Nepal’s cabinet last week decided to put a map on its Rs 100 currency note showing certain areas administered by India in Uttarakhand as part of its territory, provoking External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar to say that such “unilateral measures” by Kathmandu would not change the reality on the ground.
• The territorial dispute is about a 372-sq-km area that includes Limpiadhura, Lipulekh, and Kalapani at the India-Nepal-China trijunction in Uttarakhand’s Pithoragarh district. Nepal has claimed for long that these areas belong to it both historically and evidently.

 

Baroda Dynamite Case, in which George Fernandes was sent to Tihar jail

Page no- 14

GS1- Post-independence Consolidation and Reorganization within the country

• While hearing arguments on Tuesday (May 7) on granting interim bail to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to enable him to campaign in the ongoing Lok Sabha election, the Supreme Court mentioned George Fernandes — recalling in passing that he had contested an election from jail, and had won by a huge margin.
• There is no similarity between the cases of George and Kejriwal beyond the fact that both politicians went to jail. Unlike George, Kejriwal is not a candidate in the ongoing election; and unlike Kejriwal, George did not hold government office when he was arrested.
• The nature of allegations against them are also entirely dissimilar.

 

Global economic trade ties are fast resembling the initial era of Cold war, says IMF’s Gita Gopinath

Page no- 15

GS2- Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and Agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests

• As economies reevaluate their trading partners based on economic and national security concerns following disruptions such as COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, global economic ties are changing in ways not seen since the end of the Cold War, First Deputy Managing Director at International Monetary Fund (IMF) Gita Gopinath has said.
• Speaking at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research on the future of the International Monetary System, Gopinath, said there has been a marked increase in gold purchases by central banks during 2022-23 driven by concerns about sanctions risk especially by China bloc countries.